An idea occurred to me that might add a bit of incentive for bards to utilize lore more often, and seek to draw crowds for performances.

My idea is that whenever a bard uses their lore, other players within the same room have a window of opportunity to utilize an "applaud" command. No forced emotes or anything, but each "applaud" from a unique spectator would grant some bonus xp to the bard.

I'm suggesting xp versus gold because I don't want to detract from the idea of other players tipping or even sponsoring performers. It would also prompt bards to try to draw larger crowds (possibly even affecting a multiplier based on the number of spectators).

As someone who frequently enjoys playing a bard, I have to say I am in love with this idea.

Gold is a lovely gesture and good roleplay, but oftentimes we bards have put in a lot of time out of the game in order to write and prepare and perform. It would be nice to have it acknowledged somehow. The expectation wouldn't even be a lot of exp. Nothing drastic by any means. Just something to say 'Hey, you put some work into that.'

My hat goes off to Beshaba and his continued support of Shadowgate's starving artists.

While I do agree with the heart of the issue this post brought up. I'm not always of the mind that mechanical introduction of exp rewards are the best. I'll briefly jump on the Nienne train to say there is a possibility of abuse for such things, which is always a risk/concern with any mechanic that directly rewards exp and is in player control.

I've been around for a long time and seen a multitude of bards apply their class, or perhaps I should call it trade. And being a bard isn't limited to an entertainer. But then again, much of what they can do ICly via feats would logicly be applicable to other classes, like a cleric should beable to <rally> those of his faithful in combat. But I digress.

I think there is a negative part of picking a bard, and that is that you're expected to be this entertainer, be it song, dance, poetry and so forth, and as such when a bard does perform it is met with indifferance OOCly because it's expected. What I'd like to see is possibly more IC interactions with those whom pick the bard class and succeed at it.

Instead of an OOC recognition with a token exp gain by the few PCs that listen to your performance. Instead, lets say Julia the singer performs in tabor, and A) It's OOCly noticed she put hard work into making her performance, and B) she does it a few times and with variation (aka several differant performances) that perhaps her amazing, inspiring voice is noticed by the nobility and she's invited to play for the king. With the help of an IMM to spread the news via official posters and such, and giving Julia a license to go more all out in her performance for the king, like adding more things into her performance (and I'm using the term performance to the mechanical coding of her song, with all the emotes and whatnot that are stringed together), like a whole orchestra that she couldn't use before since I doubt a travelling bard has 50 of her best friends with her.

This to me at leaste would be far more gratifying in itself. But of course the imm taking care of this miniplot could then reward the player with an exp boost, perhaps even an item from the kings vault and it would provide IC reputation with the NPC population, perhaps it doesn't take long for the king of Antioch to desire her performance at a banquet, or a temple wishes her to sing a glorification to their patron during a high cerimony.

That to me would nearly be the endgame of bard, if you go for an entertainer. But yes, the main issue is that this is far more handson than a command to issue exp gains in reward for the bard. I know that those who choose the class have to put in a lot of time for their performances. And as I started with, I love the heart of the idea Beshaba, I just prefer actual effort that performing bards put in to mean more than token exp gains.

On that note I will ask all players whom witness a bard perform and you can see their hard work, write an avatarmail with the persons name. location, date and a brief summary of their performance, doesn't have to be more than a sentance. Since avatars can't be around all the time or monitor us all, it's a great way to raise awareness and in the long run hopefully reward that bard.

And ViolaRose, just a suggestion, if you're working on your performances peices at the computer, login, find a quiet spot and work on your stuff. Imo if you're working on something for the ingame you should do it while online, sure you might get interupted with roleplaying, but you can roleplay preparing, rehersing or writing your performances, and it'll allow you to accumilate playtime, so you don't feel like your IC work that was done out of game rewards little._________________Intelligence is knowing a tomato is a fruit,
Wisdom is knowing not to put it into a fruit salad.

One point of Beshaba's idea that makes it so enticing is that it doesn't require imm intervention at all. Sure it would be nice for an avatar to promote a bard like that, but I've seen it done a total of zero times even when we had wizzes all over the place.. And with the limited staffing we've now I don't see it happening anytime soon.

And there is the potential for abuse, most definitely. If the bard can find someone to <applaud> them over and over and over for 1000 exp or whatever.

But! If exp isn't something we want (?) maybe there could be a way to track performances within a city (ie your mail cmd if any imm wanted to actually monitor something like that), and a bit of added reputation could get the bard a free drink, insider city info, entrance into the queen's bedchambers...(etc) But, again, that would require imm intervention and (see above)... I mean, yeah, that would be more than ideal. It would be freaking amazing for a bard and really allow them to fill out the role rather than just playing a glorified court jester half the time. Actually, a reputation system that applies to bards and non-bards alike in cities (beyond guards attacking or not) would be a bit glorious, but wow.. that sounds like a bit of crazy coding.

And thanks for the suggestion! I do do that generally, and it tends to result in me idling out every ten minutes. The pains of being a poet with my head always in the clouds..

Viola already covered the fact that one of the main points is a lack of Imm involvement. Automated systems are much more likely to be implemented, from my perspective, as an active Imm base isn't always available.

And we aren't talking big buckets of xp either. It would be small amounts. While it could be exploited by someone playing their bard, and having some friends applaud them... honestly, does anyone have enough friends that it would be easier than just going out and killing something? The idea is to reinforce and bolster RP aspects of the class. Not replace the common xp acquisition.

I do have to play devil's advocate and ask... when there's similarly in-depth RP from another class, why should they not have the same option? I get it, I've played multiple bards and I'm aware of the effort that some (not all) put into it. You may or may not be surprised to know that the majority of bards on our mud just use copyrighted material from around the web (which is a big concern...). Do we reward copy-pasting? Do we disregard the non-bard that just busted out an epic performance far better than most bards I've seen? (yes, this has happened in the last couple months).

I am a big fan of the theory, having been that bard several times myself, but I'm not sure automated exp handouts to one single class for good RP (that may or may not actually be good RP) are necessarily the answer. For the ones that do actually put the effort in, it usually doesn't take real long to get noticed, and unlike many classes, bards have this as a key tool to let them shine for HM.

I like Bes' idea alot and I do not think it falls into the same area the Zathery thinks it does. IN this case I think if you be matter of fact that those who applaud would get one applaud per performance andthe amount of exp granted would not be so much from only one person so the abuse would require a concerted effort. Ar ther really that many out there? Doubtful, also the imms could set the exp to log so they can see who is providing the exp to who...I think that would cover the possibility of abuse and let the Imm's deal with the abusers. WEhy punish all the bards that are doing it right. All in all I think this was a very good idea and may encourage more bards and more bards acting bardly. Unfortunately we do not have enough imms to miniplot performances and people are notorius for forgetting to do pkmail, I imagine this would not work any better._________________Momma liked it so much she named me twice.

While I'm not sure if this is quite on topic, this discussion ties in pretty neatly with an idea I had a couple of weeks ago. We have a number of theaters in-game (in Torm, Tabor...), and several NPCs walking around cities claiming to be actors, and I've been disappointed, for a while, that they don't actually do anything besides the occasional emote. While I do usually just RP the activity there as happening off-screen, you can sit in front of a stage for days and not see a single real performance, which doesn't really scream "lifelike".

What if instead, the theaters acted as something of a library for bardic lore? This could allow bards to submit their songs/stories/whatever to the theaters for reproduction by the city's actors and singers. Every so often (three times per IG day?) the theater could pick a random recital from their list of lores (bards with bigger catalogs would get more exposure this way, and therefore more incentive to create new, original works), and perform it for the room, without the need for the author to even be online. You could go a step further and allow players the ability to sponsor particular performances, if they want to see something in particular without waiting. Then the original author might get some kind of cut of the production's profits...

I think something like this would have two benefits - one, it would make it easier for bards to show off their work to a wider audience, over a longer period of time. Two, it ensures that their efforts continue to positively impact the game world even when they are no longer around. As it stands, when a bard is suddenly no longer playing, their entire list of recitals goes away with them, and I have to imagine there's a lot of history and detail being lost, there.

As far as rewards go, and slightly more on topic, does it have to be something like xp or gold? It might take a bit more effort to set up, but what if bards had their own guild shops that run on credit, in the same vein as thieves guilds? Instead of gaining something tangible, perhaps whenever a bard earns a cookie (whether through an applaud command, or a theater recital, or whatever), an amount of credits is added to their account, which can then be traded in for special, class-specific items later? It would solve the problem of abuse (since no matter how many credits they have, most bards probably don't have much use for more than one Greater Cello of Unenviable Lacerations), while still giving bards who put the effort it takes to write good lore in some kind of mechanical bonus.

I like any idea that promotes lore and making a stagnant world come alive. There is already a traveling bard in game that sings songs of his own design, so it might not be too difficult to use a similar sort of code (I know nothing about coding so I'm basically talking out of my aaa...nyway...) - That said, I really think that the submitted songs would need to be monitored to an extent because nothing is worse than bad grammar. And who knows what tricks some jaded troll might try to pull. That said, as long as I'm around I wouldn't mind giving a glance to submissions before they go "live"...

And on another note, perhaps it could even be implemented that bards could go to these locations and learn the lore left behind by others.

It's already on my list, actually... just a long way down behind many other items

Submissions would have to be manually done, and may attract cookies and/or other shineys. Would be by necessity original works, as these go one step beyond just things that players add to their RP, up to things we actually install into the mud - so copyrighted materials would be a no-no. Doesn't matter if you've changed a few names; if it's taken from someone else's work, we really need to avoid it. Only submit it if you were responsible for writing it yourself, and you're happy to give us permission to use it in this way. If you have a bard character with it already installed into the game, simply send me the PC name and the song name and I should be able to find it directly

I were going to make a request on this when I was ready to code it, but I guess at this point if there's some out there I can keep them on hand for when I have the time to code up the aforementioned NPCs - Tabor and the Rhapsody would be the likely targets at least to start with. A major preference to lore-based ones to maintain the history of the mud (as low-end as the great adventures of joe-bob the righteous, right up to word-changing events), though any may serve. Having nothing but love-songs around would get a little dull I can't promise a strict ETA on this, since I'm making headway at present on a bunch of other high-demand projects, but it has been on the want list for a while so it will happen at some point.